


The Hardy-Drew Sisters

by Izzielizzie



Category: Nancy Drew (TV 2019)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29738109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izzielizzie/pseuds/Izzielizzie
Summary: Nearly twenty years after her gap year, Nancy Drew has some new adventures on her hands: she and her husband Ace juggle running their specialized unit at the Horseshoe Bay Police Department while raising teenage twin daughters. Lucy and Kate Hardy-Drew have their own adventures too, and soon it's obvious that Nancy and Ace aren't the only investigative duo in Horseshoe Bay
Relationships: Ace/Nancy Drew
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	The Hardy-Drew Sisters

# Brunch with the Grandfathers

“ _Mom_ come on we’re going to be late!” Kate calls up the stairs to her parents’ bedroom. It’s the first Saturday of the month, which, for the Hardy-Drew girls, means brunch with their grandfathers. 

“Coming darling!” Nancy calls back. She glances at Ace in her mirror. “Is this going to end badly?”

Ace smirks. “Nance you think _everything_ is going to end badly.”

“Mostly because it does!”

“It’s just one meal with your dads. Nothing’s gonna happen.”

“Well, your dad isn’t coming,” Nancy muses. “Maybe it’s because something happened.”

Ace stretches, stands from his perch at the end of the bed, and puts his hands on his wife’s shoulders. “Or maybe it’s because he’s in New York with my mom and you’re just projecting your fears about our last case onto our very _safe_ and _fun_ morning out.”

Nancy sighs and leans her head against Ace’s arm. “I can’t stop thinking about the case.” Nancy and Ace had been working on a case where a woman _insisted_ she had seen a ghost releasing small little creatures around Horseshoe Bay. It was definitely one of their weirder mysteries, but they had managed to find all the fuzzy, bloodsucking creatures that seemed to have a love for pipes except for one that _refused_ to be found. 

“I know. Me too. But today is going to be a good day where we hang out with our daughters and your dads and eat more food than we should.”

Nancy closes her eyes, her head still on Ace’s forearm. “You’re right. I’m just being paranoid.”

Ace studies Nancy for a moment, reading her thoughts as easily as if she had spoken them aloud. “But you have a hunch.” It’s a statement, not a question. 

“But I have a hunch,” Nancy confirms. 

Twenty minutes later, Ace’s vintage car that could hardly hold the twins when they were toddlers and _really_ can’t hold them now that they are fourteen, lurches to a stop in front of the Horseshoe Bay Café. Nancy and the twins stumble out of the car, trying desperately to get their breathing under control. The car had been jerking and sputtering for the duration of the ride and it was making everyone nauseous. Everyone except for Ace that is. 

“Everyone ready?” Ace asks, stretching and grinning at his family.

“I think my appetite is gone,” Kate mumbles to Lucy.

“Agreed,” Lucy whispers back. Their nausea is forgotten, however, when their Grandpa Ryan’s blue car parks behind Ace’s. He climbs out quickly, and opens his arms for a hug. The girls rush to him while Nancy bumps her shoulder against Ace’s arm. 

“You might want to invest in a new car at some point, babe.”

Ace looks alarmed. “What? Why?” Nancy gives him a look and he drops his act. “Okay, fine. I’ll look at it first though, when we get home.” 

“You’ve been saying that for years!” Nancy calls over her shoulder as she follows her daughters and father into the store, her husband trailing after her, shaking his head. 

“Mom _broke_ into the _morgue_?” Lucy turns to her mother with rapturous eyes. “You are much cooler than I thought.”

“Thank you Lucy Goosey,” Nancy says, using her childhood nickname for the blonde haired, blue eyed twin. “But I don’t want you getting any ideas,” she says firmly, glaring at Carson Drew, who hides his laughter behind his coffee mug. They’d been talking about Nancy’s teenage hijinks, and unfortunately, Carson and Ryan have many stories to tell. 

“Mom do you think we’ll solve mysteries like you and Dad?” Kate asks, stealing a strawberry from her sister’s plate. Lucy pulls the strawberry out of Kate’s hand and bites into it. Kate turns her imploring eyes to her father, who passes her a strawberry - Kate’s favorite - without hesitation.

Nancy smiles. These are the moments she lives for between all the craziness: watching her daughters argue about food in their wordless way, laughing with her fathers about her wild teenage days, and most of all, sharing those quiet moments with Ace where she can just lean against him and feel, for a moment, that everything is alright. 

“If you girls want to, I don’t see why you can’t solve mysteries.”

“Nice,” Kate says, leaning her head against her mom’s shoulder for a moment. Nancy smiles. Kate isn’t very affectionate, so just that small gesture makes Nancy’s day.

“I rather drink coffee than solve a mystery,” Lucy says, eyeing Ryan’s mug.

“Sure,” Ryan says with a shrug.

“ _No_ ,” Ace says, pulling the mug out of Lucy’s outstretched hands and handing it back to Ryan, who shrugs again and takes the mug back. “You can have some coffee after you solve a mystery,” Ace promises when Lucy gives him her best disappointed face. Nancy gives him a look and Ace shrugs. She understands the meaning behind the gesture as easily as if he had spoken: _she’s not going to solve a mystery any time soon is she?_

“Yes!” Lucy turns to her sister. “Kate if you solve a mystery I’m taking the credit.” Kate makes a face at her sister but doesn’t comment.

Nancy catches her husband’s eye and smiles at him. He rolls his eyes at her in response. Lucy has been desperate to grow up lately, and she’s been trying to sneak a cup of coffee whenever her parents haven’t been looking. Nancy wraps her arms around her daughters, pulling them into her. “I love you girls,” she says.

“Love you too, Mom,” Lucy says.

“Yep,” Kate mutters. Nancy laughs.

“Do we have to get into this car again?” Kate whines thirty minutes later as they exit the café.

“There’s nothing wrong with it Katie,” Ace says, wrapping his arm around her.

“Liar,” Kate mutters.

“The girls are welcome to come with me,” Carson says.

“Or me,” Ryan adds.

“Take me with you too,” Nancy jokes. She turns to her side to ask Lucy what she’d prefer, and she’s startled to realize she’s gone. “Lucy?” she calls in alarm, spinning around to see where her daughter went. “Kate, where's Lucy?”

“With you, why?” Kate asks, startled.

“Did you see her Ace?” Nancy asks, panic causing her hands to shake. Despite being level headed in the most dangerous situations, Nancy’s fear seems to manifest itself in strange ways when her daughters are involved. She nearly had a panic attack a few years back when Kate had appendicitis.

“Nance calm down, we'll find her.” Ace takes her hands in his to stop the shaking. Nancy is so grateful that he’s around. Only Ace can notice things about her that she doesn’t.

“Maybe she went back inside?” Ryan offers, already heading towards the café.

“I’ll see if she’s walking in the area,” Carson says, turning on his heel.

“I told you something would happen,” Nancy hisses at her husband when her fathers leave.

Ace doesn’t say anything, he simply turns to Kate. “Do you know where your sister could be?”

Kate furrows her brow for a second and tugs on her red hair. “She mentioned that she noticed something off about your car. Maybe she’s there?”

Ace and Nancy rush for the vintage car the moment Kate finishes her question, their daughter hot on their heels. They stop short when they see Lucy standing with her brown cardigan in a bundle. There are scratches on her arms and grease in her waist length hair and her cardigan is moving a little. Nancy stops short and breathes a sigh of relief. _Of course_. The first rule of solving mysteries is that the answer is usually in plain sight. And Lucy is, quite literally, in plain sight. “Kate go tell your grandfathers we found Lucy,” Nancy says, putting a hand over her racing heart. Ace reaches out and squeezes Nancy’s hand. She looks up at him, and realizes that he was just as scared as she was. 

“Okay, but I’d like to point out that I just solved a mystery,” Kate says proudly. She huffs when everyone ignores her before skipping off blithely to find Carson and Ryan.

“Lucy what are you doing?” Ace asks, dropping Nancy’s hand and stepping forward, taking the bundled cardigan from her. 

“Well, the car felt off earlier and I remembered Uncle Nick telling me when I was at his garage that if a car was sputtering like that I should check the tailpipe. So I checked the tailpipe.”

“And?” Nancy asks as Ryan, Carson, and Kate arrive.

“And there was some weird creature inside that wouldn’t come out and I realized that it probably liked the dark so I took off my sweater and wrapped it around the tailpipe and it snuck out and tried to scratch me but I caught it. So can I have my coffee now?”

“What?” Nancy wasn’t expecting _that_ question to end the story.

“You told me that I could have a coffee if I solved a mystery and I solved a mystery.”

“We meant a _major_ mystery Luce, not the case of the grumpy raccoon.”

“Hey Nancy. I think Lucy _did_ just solve a major mystery.” Nancy turns to look at Ace, who’s examining the sweater. Nancy steps closer to him and gasps when she sees the evasive creature that’s had the Horseshoe Bay Police Department on its toes for the past week.

“Wow,” Nancy whispers, turning to look at Lucy, who’s fiddling with her blonde hair hopefully. “Fine. You _and_ Kate can have some coffee after we get home and you shower.”

Lucy makes a face. “ _And_ Kate?”

Ace laughs. “She solved the mystery of where you went.”

“Technically I solved my mystery before you solved yours,” Kate adds. 

“Technically no one asked,” Lucy fires back, swinging an arm around her sister’s shoulders. The two both climb into the back seat of Ace’s car. Nancy hugs her fathers goodbye and follows.

Later that day, after Ace and Nancy rush to their office to wrap up their case, Nancy climbs up the steps to Lucy’s room. She knocks on the door and finds her daughter laying on the floor, writing in a notebook she shuts hastily when she sees her mother. 

“May I come in dear?”

“Of course.” Lucy sits up and stretches her feet into her mother’s lap once she sits down. Nancy smiles at the childish gesture. 

“How was the coffee?”

Lucy makes a face. “Oh, it was alright.”

“Really? You wanted it so badly.”

“Yeah, but I think I’d rather be a detective. I mean I solved the one the PD was having trouble with.”

Nancy narrows her eyes. “How did you know that?”

“Mom, you’re not the only one who knows how to eavesdrop.”

“Don’t make me ground you Lucy,” Nancy says, shaking Lucy’s foot a little.

“I won’t,” Lucy says. Much to Nancy’s surprise - and probably to Lucy’s as well - Lucy crawls forward until she’s situated comfortably in her mother’s lap. Nancy hugs her tightly and rocks her back and forth like she did when Lucy was little. “Mom can I work with you at the station?”

“Not yet Lucy. You’re too young.” Nancy isn’t quite sure if Lucy really _is_ too young. At her age, Nancy was solving more mysteries than she probably should have. If she’s being honest with herself, she really just wants her babies to stay young for as long as they can.

“Okay then. I love you, Mom,” Lucy says, leaning her head on her mom’s shoulder and closing her eyes.

“I love you too Lucy.” Nancy’s pleasantly surprised that Lucy is willing to speak her feelings aloud. 

“But when I turn _fifteen_ can I work with you?”

“ _Lucy_.”

(To no one's surprise but Nancy’s, Lucy and Kate end up volunteering at the police department within a month)


End file.
